History of Clinical Psychology – authors meeting

On Friday 19th September a number of the authors of ‘The History of Clinical Psychology’ met at NCVO in London to review progress and to look at chapter overlap. 2016 sees the 50th anniversary of the Division of Clinical Psychology and this BPS publication will reflect on the changes in training and clinical practice across that period. The 25 chapters (167,500 words) will not only look back at where the profession has come from, but think about some of the challenges we may face in the future. A number of oral history interviews will also be recorded for posterity. Although the chapters are well under way, the editors and authors would welcome anecdotes or related archive material. One of the interesting discoveries has been how the profession has ‘grown like Topsy’ and that individual subsystems may not have created a central BPS archive of their papers, journals, minutes and conference symposia that might answer some of the authors’ questions about what happened when and what were the critical issues of each cohort or era. Are you a former subsystem chair or secretary and do you have documents that would help?

What do you know about the history of your profession and what would you like to find out?

In addition to the launch of the published book at the 2015 conference heralding the beginning of the anniversary, a number of events are planned across the next two years and it is not too late to request speakers to attend a Branch or Faculty event in your locality. See regular updates in Forum in 2015. There will be a symposia at the 2015 DCP London Conference where a debate will be held on where the profession will go in the next 50 years. This gives us all the opportunity for discussions with colleagues from other professional groups, historians, commissioners and policy makers. What will your contribution be locally and nationally?